Wednesday, August 22, 2012

An Interview with the Geniuses Behind the Bookstore-BookBlogger Connection Website

In Sue’s Saturday Suggestions #8 I posted a
link to the Bookstore-BookBlogger
Connection website run by Andrea and Elizabeth, two ladies that I
follow on their individual book blogs. I was intrigued by the idea and so I
asked the ladies a few questions to get a better idea of what the website is
all about and why we should all be supporting it.

1. Could you introduce
yourself?

Andrea: I'm a nerd, book reviewer,
blogger, and lover of books. Bookstores and libraries are my bat-cave.

Elizabeth: uh... ditto. Sort of. I
am a lifetime reader of science fiction and fantasy, and I'd have way more
money in my savings account if I didn't buy so many books. But, of course, my
life would be so less the richer. I don't review books very much any more, I
found that it's not really for me (it's too much work!) but we keep up a
running discussion on bookish life with Darkcargo.

2. How does the
Bookstore-BookBlogger Connection work?

Andrea: it's easy. Book bloggers
submit "blurbs" - a sentence or two of book reviews they have posted
on their blogs, and when we have enough we'll start offering them to bookstores
to help promote books.

Elizabeth: Bookstores are welcome to
use these blurbs to sell their booky stock, either used books or new books. One
way that Andrea came up with is to have them nicely printed on cardstock as
shelf-talkers. Another way that we might find to be useful is to create a page
that bookstores can log into in order to allow customers to browse an indexed,
linked listing of books that their peers have read and enjoyed. The point is
that it's us "joe-schmoes" that are reviewing and recommending books
to one another. I know that I pay more attention to the peer reviews from my
fellow bloggers than to the hoity-toity (sorry) litteratzi reviews from
Publisher's Weekly and the like. I've never bought a book reviewed in a major
magazine or newspaper, but I am forever buying books that my pals have raved about.

3. What made you think of
the idea in the first place?

Andrea: Elizabeth and I had been
brainstorming about our shared love for used bookstores and older books. How
could we help older titles get more attention? After much brainstorming, this
is what we came up with.

Elizabeth: Talking to the
"Chapel Hill Sisters" (see question below), I was asking about a book
that someone had reviewed...on some book blog...somewhere... and I wanted to
buy a copy, hadn't they kept up with all the book blogs? No, of course not.
What's a book blog? Urp! We need to make a connection here! I thought.

I used to work seasonal at B&N and we'd have to put up these shelf
talkers with these lame blurbs by people no one knew, for books no one cared
about. But you know what sold books? The booksellers recommending books to
customers. It's that one-on-one that sells. Having a book recommended to you is
one of those cool intellectual gifts.

4. Do you have a favorite
independent bookstore?

Andrea: Kazoo Books in Kalamazoo
Michigan. They have the best staff in the world, tens of thousands of books,
and Tinker (the cat) meets me at the door. I'm also a huge fan of John King
books in Detroit, Michigan

Elizabeth: No. All of them. It's
like asking which is my favorite color. Some that I frequent often are the
mobile bookstores that attend the science fiction conventions we get to go to.
There are the "Chapel Hill Sisters", out of Durham NC who set up shop
at StellarCon, RavenCon, ConCarolinas. They know me now, and it is quite the experience
to have them jump up and down and scowl at me when I admit to not having read
thus and such. They will, needless to say, slurp all my cash away in a weekend.
http://www.orielisbooks.com/

5. Could you share your
favorite blurb or the blurb for your favorite book?

Andrea: oooh, tough
question! I think so far my favorite is from Books Without Any Pictures for
Catherynne M. Valente's Deathless. She says:

"Deathless is the kind of book that ruins all other
books by creating a standard that’s impossible to live up to. Everything else
just seems pale and watery by comparison. If you have even the slightest
interest in Russia, folklore, or fairy tales, then you should read this one
immediately."

Don't you just want to go out and grab that book right now?

Elizabeth: I'm going to point at
Books Without Any Pictures, too, with a blurb for C.S. Friedman:

"One of the things that impresses me the most about C. S.
Friedman’s writing is that her characters are morally ambiguous. Nobody in the
book is purely good or purely evil, but instead characters have complex and
multi-faceted personalities and ambitions."

I like this blurb because it captures some of the pinnacles of what
makes Friedman's writing unique, it's not tied down to any one of her books but
is true of all of them.

6. What do you hope to
achieve with the Connection?

Andrea: I hope to help foster a
growing partnership between used bookstores and bloggers.

Elizabeth: I'd like the book blogger
community to become better recognized for the work these people put into their
reviews. It's a lot of work, several hours per week.

7. How do you see the
Connection developing and growing in the future?

Andrea: I see it developing and
growing a lot! Just having quite figured out how, or in which directions
yet.

Elizabeth: at the least, I foresee a
massive index of book reviews for the SF/F genre, which would be cool in and of
its own, even if the bookstores don't have much use for us.

My thanks to the ladies for answering my questions and for starting this wonderful initiative . . . now I must go and write some blurbs to add to the site!